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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204473">Freezing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes'>ohgodmyeyes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Death, Depressing, Depression, Disjointed, F/M, Fear, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hemicorporectomy, Humanity, Kind Reader, Kindness, Mental Health Issues, Nonsense, Odd Reader, One Shot, Reader-Insert, Self-Harm, Snow, Suicide, two strangers meeting briefly in the night</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:56:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You're about to cross the railway tracks on a cold winter night when lights begin to flash and signals start to blare, indicating the presence of an oncoming train. You stop to wait for it to go by, content to enjoy the simple beauty of the the snow falling all around you, when you notice what you think is a bag of trash in the engine's path.</p><p>The 'bag', though, seems to move... and when you approach it, you find that it isn't trash at all. </p><p>It's a person, and his name is Anakin.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker &amp; Reader, Anakin Skywalker/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Freezing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was not what I was supposed to be working on/posting today and I definitely do know that, but it's what I wanted to write, so it's what I'm uploading first. Thank you for your patience, if indeed you were waiting for something different. </p><p>Dedicated to someone who I know is always there for me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You're awfully handsome— did you know I've never met such a handsome guy before in my whole life?"</p><p>"You're just saying that."</p><p>You laughed, despite the fact that the tears you happened to be shedding were threatening to freeze to your face. "No— no, Anakin, I'm not just saying that."</p><p>It was dark and it was snowy, and you were all by yourselves at a sparse, semi-rural railway crossing. You were looking down on him right now, holding his head in your lap; his face was dimly illuminated by a few old, halogen street lights. There hadn't been time for you to get to learn very much about him, but it would have been clear from even the most cursory glance in his direction that Anakin was a lovely man... and so that was what you focused on. Even though his face had now been rendered as stark-white as the snow surrounding you, and even though his eyes were presently brimming with fear, you could hardly have used any word to describe him that was not synonymous with 'beautiful'. That shouldn't have made this any more sad or wasteful than it already was, but it did. Somehow, it did.</p><p>"Why are you doing this, anyway?" he asked, having begun to sound a bit weak. </p><p>"It's nothing," you lied. "You seem like the kind of person who would do this for someone else, so I think I should do it for you." The snow you'd thought was so pretty only a few minutes ago was landing on him; you moved to brush some of it off of his shoulder. The gesture was both gentle and useless.</p><p>He chuckled at that, as best as he could chuckle. "I seem like that kind of person to you?"</p><p>With an emphatic nod, you answered him, "You do— you really do."</p><p>He did. You'd been standing near the tracks appreciating the snowfall when you first saw him; the railway signs had just started to blink, and you could hear the sound of the train engine's horn blaring as it approached. You thought someone had left garbage on the tracks; a big bag of it. As you had admonished the offending litter-bug in your head, though, you noticed the end of the dark bundle start to move; that was also when you realized that it seemed to have both a head of hair and a face, too.</p><p>By the time you'd recognized Anakin for what he was— a person laying across the tracks— the train had been nearly upon him. You dashed toward him anyway; grabbed his jacket in an effort to try and pull him away, but you couldn't. You wouldn't realize until later that he had most likely been gripping the rails with his fingers, actively preventing you from rescuing him. He didn't say anything while you tugged on his coat; as the train whooshed by your face, you recoiled. As soon as it had passed, though, you leapt back to his aid in spite of the fact that you knew it was much too late. </p><p>The train, for its part, didn't stop— it just carried on into the night. There were so many little bushes and piles of dead wood alongside the tracks; maybe the engineer hadn't realized what had happened. Maybe he, like you, had thought the man in his path was just a pile of trash.</p><p>You tried as hard as you could not to look, but of course you couldn't help yourself: Everything below the middle of his chest had been decimated as the wheels of the engine had passed over him. It had been going so fast that it seemed to have torn him right in half. His legs were hardly even recognizable as legs anymore (save for the boots on his feet), and his midsection had been all but ripped apart. There was blood on the snow and blood on the rails; blood everywhere, really, although to look at his face you might have thought he was going to live. His eyes, after all, were open... and again, they were wide with fear. </p><p><i>"Why?"</i> was the very first thing you had asked, somehow summoning the strength to lift (albeit with shaking hands) his head onto your lap. You were sitting on your knees in the snow; your own legs were cold, but you didn't care. You should have been panicking: Screaming, shouting, running for help. You weren't, though, maybe because you understood that there was nothing to be accomplished by doing so. Maybe you were just in shock. </p><p>It was by then that you realized you could smell the blood— rich, coppery, <i>pungent</i>. You didn't want to smell it, but you did anyway; kept your eyes fixed on his face so you wouldn't have to see it as well.</p><p>"I was too scared to put my head on the rail," he said, not really answering your question. "I still thought I'd be dead by now, though. How bad is it; can you see?"</p><p>"It's... well, it's pretty bad," you told him, without having to look again. "I just don't understand why—"</p><p>"My wife died," he said. He clearly understood what it was you wanted to know. You had no idea how he was still talking; still conscious. You were afraid to peer back down the length of his body, because you'd already glimpsed more than enough.</p><p>"Your wife?"</p><p>"I always used to tell her I couldn't live without her."</p><p>"You weren't joking, were you?"</p><p>"I don't tell jokes. Not lately, anyway."</p><p>You didn't doubt that was true. You might have asked what happened to his wife; how she died, or maybe what she'd been like. You didn't need to look to know you didn't have time for that, though, so you just asked for his name. You wanted to know his name.</p><p>"It's Anakin," he said. "My name is Anakin."</p><p>"That's a nice name. It suits you." You paused, and reached into the pocket of your coat to look for your phone, only to find that there was nothing there. You must have left it at work; you'd been coming home from work when this had all started. It didn't matter, though; a phone wouldn't have helped. Anakin was going to die no matter what you did. Maybe that was why you weren't running away, although by then you'd started to cry. You couldn't help but cry.</p><p>"A name's a name," he told you. If he could have shrugged, you thought he might have. "My mom must have thought it suited me, too."</p><p>"Well," you said, "I think she was right." </p><p>You had told him next that 'Anakin' was a handsome name, and that he was handsome too. After that was when he had said to you that he thought you were 'just saying that', and asked you why you were sitting with him. Again, your answer hadn't been a lie; he <i>did</i> seem like a kind person... so why the hell would he have done this? Losing his wife didn't strike you as being a good enough excuse to erase himself from existence... but then, you didn't know him. Surely, though, there had been more to his life than only her. Didn't he have anybody else?</p><p>"Why is this taking so long?" he asked, his face finally having begun to betray the seriousness of his injury. You glanced down even though you didn't want to; the blood was freezing into the snow, and the shredded remnants of his lower half had ceased giving off much steam.</p><p>"Probably because it's so cold outside," you said. The cold slowed everything down, from cars to rot to human bodies.</p><p>"I always hated the cold," he told you with a smile. How was he laughing and smiling right now, anyway? You didn't understand it. Maybe he was delirious from the blood he'd lost, or maybe he was just happy he was about to die. There was no way to tell. He still looked scared, though; if he had any trepidation, it was his eyes that betrayed it: Even if <i>he</i> wasn't frightened, they certainly were.</p><p>"You must not be from around here," you said, trying as best you could to smile back at him. It was cold, sometimes, for half of the entire year where you lived— cold, and dark too. Months of winter meant that most people who were born here grew accustomed to the climate when they were very young.</p><p>"No," he confirmed. "I'm— <i>shit!"</i></p><p>His exclamation made you jump, although you tried not to jostle him too much. "What?" you asked. "What's wrong?" How stupid a question was that?</p><p>"I-I... I don't know. I thought it would hurt, but it doesn't hurt. It's just cold. Are you cold?"</p><p>"Freezing," you said, glancing one more time down the length of his body in spite of yourself. The blood closest to you was so dark that it was almost black, in sharp contrast to the bright red spray marring the snow all around. You thought you could see bits and pieces of a few of his internal organs scattered about the wood between the rails, but you didn't really know much about what people looked like from the inside, so you couldn't be sure. You took a deep breath then, trying to steady yourself.</p><p>"I'm g-glad I'm n-not the only o-one," he stammered. </p><p>"You're definitely not the only one, Anakin. I'm cold, too. We're both cold." The type of cold you were experiencing and the type of cold he was experiencing were two very different kinds of cold, of course, but you didn't want him to feel alone. Not at a time like this.</p><p>"I th-think... I-I mean, I think I'm a-almost..."</p><p>You nodded, and touched the side of his face; stroked it gently with your thumb. "You are," you said. "I think it's almost over."</p><p>"Th-that's a-all I w-wanted. I... I wanted this to be—" He interrupted himself then with a halting, ragged-sounding groan. You waited a moment for him to resume speaking, but he didn't. His mouth opened and closed uselessly as he looked up at you; when it was agape, you were sure you could see blood bubbling up from the back of his throat. </p><p>"Shh— don't talk anymore, Anakin, it's alright. <i>It's alright."</i> It wasn't alright, but what else were you supposed to say? </p><p>He nodded for you, and breathed as deeply as he could. His breathing sounded terrible. </p><p>"Can I tell you something?" you asked, because you thought it might help if you kept talking. If you were dying in someone's arms, surely you would have wanted them to talk to you. You didn't wait for him to nod again or otherwise respond before going on, "I'm glad I met you tonight. I'm glad I saw you. I was telling the truth when I said you seemed like a nice person."</p><p>There was blood trickling out the side of his mouth now despite gravity, and his eyes were starting to close. You'd only just noticed that they were blue— very blue. You guessed his wife must have liked them, because you certainly did. His bloodied lips seemed to want to turn up into a smile, but they couldn't, not anymore. You kept on talking to him, because he couldn't talk back.</p><p>"I don't have a lot of friends," you said. "I've always been that way, ever since I was a little kid. My parents called me a loner, and I guess they were kind of right. You know what, though? I think I could be friends with you." Even though you knew he couldn't respond, you asked him, "Would you mind if I called you my friend, Anakin?"</p><p>You didn't know why you did it, but you leaned down to kiss his forehead next. You hoped it didn't bother him. Again, if you'd been in his position, you might have liked for someone to lean down and kiss your head.</p><p>Maybe he did like it; maybe he didn't— you'd never know, because by the time you raised your head to look at him again, it was very clear to you that he was dead. </p><p>Cold, white, silent, and dead. </p><p>You should have leapt to your feet at that point; jumped up for the purpose of running to the nearest home (the homes were spread-out here; it would take several minutes no matter how quickly or in which direction you moved), but you didn't. Not right away. </p><p>For whatever reason, you just couldn't bring yourself to place his head back down in the snow. </p><p>"I'm sorry, Anakin," you said, as a violent wave of guilt crashed into you at a speed comparable to that of the train he'd just used to end his pain. You couldn't discern why you were apologizing to him; maybe you were sorry for forgetting your phone, or for arriving at the crossing too late, or for not being strong enough to drag him out of danger. Maybe you were apologizing for whatever he'd been through that made him think suicide was a reasonable response to losing someone he loved. </p><p>You wished, then, that he'd had time to tell you a bit more about himself before succumbing to his injuries.</p><p>You still didn't want to get up, because you still didn't want to lay him down in the snow. You'd held pets as they'd died before; every single one you'd ever had, you'd wrapped up in something like a blanket or a sweater before burying it or leaving it with the vet. Anakin, you knew without having to know him, had been much more of a presence during his time on Earth than anybody's dead hamster or fish or black-and-white spotted rat— how were you to be expected to leave him like this? Alone, in the cold?</p><p>Thinking swiftly (if haphazardly), you very carefully took your hands off of his face, and went on to remove your coat. You'd be running at full-speed soon; after that, presumably, you'd be riding in either an ambulance or a police car to show somebody who could help just what had happened. </p><p>It was difficult not to look at the middle of the tracks, and it was difficult not to move him too much, but you managed to slide your bundled-up jacket beneath his head in place of your knees anyhow. Reluctantly, you rose to your feet after that; hardly even noticed how cold and stiff your legs had grown while you'd been sharing Anakin's final moments. You'd notice tomorrow; tomorrow they'd hurt, but you wouldn't care about that. Anakin, after all, didn't have the privilege of looking forward to 'tomorrow' at all. You supposed that to do what he'd done, though, his 'tomorrows' must have seemed more like looming spectres, as opposed to opportunities.</p><p>Involuntarily (and inadvisably, too), you stole one more look at his body before you turned to run. Icy, black blood coated both the tracks and the wood between them; slivers of bone and cartilage as white as the skin on his face glimmered in the light cast by the street lamps. His legs had been broken along with the rest of him, and you hoped fervently that he hadn't felt them splinter apart. </p><p>The last thing you looked at before dashing off in search of a house was his face, which contrasted so sharply with the rest of his wounded body that you could almost imagine he was still alive— that, if you hurried, you might be able to get back with a team of paramedics in time to save him; take him to the hospital, where he might be patched up.</p><p>His life would never be the same, but it would be okay, because you'd already agreed to be his friend.</p><p>You let your imagination run as wildly as your legs in that precise direction, as you left him in the snow to go and get help. </p><p><i>I'm glad you found me in time,</i> you imagined him saying over coffee, as he sat in a wheelchair or something like one at the café near your house.</p><p><i>I'm glad I did, too— I couldn't have asked for a better friend, Anakin,</i> you pictured yourself saying back to him, as you smiled into those pretty blue eyes of his and opened up a box of your favourite kind of doughnuts.</p><p>You'd never actually know whether or not the ones with the white icing and multicoloured sprinkles were his favourites, too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Inspired by a case-study in which the woman cut in half by the train lived long enough to be taken to hospital &amp; express that she regretted what she'd done. </p><p>So, this is actually plausible.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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